The present invention pertains to a deformable housing structure of light-weight construction, preferably for use as a housing for a heater in automotive vehicles.
In today's automotive vehicles, not only the chassis and the vehicle body, but also other structural parts, such as, for example, the housing for the heater must be designed so that it will be capable of absorbing by deformation the inertia forces generated in the case of a collision, in order to reduce the danger to the occupants of the vehicle. The heater housing usually is found beneath the dashboard in the vehicle and would be pushed by the engine, in case of an impact, into the passenger compartment and injure the occupants thereof. Attempts are, therefore, being made today in the design of heater housings to render them deformable, a result which, in the case of the presently known heater housings, has not yet been achieved, or only to an inadequate degree. Thus, conventional heater housings are for the most part made of synthetic plastic materials, usually with an overall constant wall thickness. Such a structure is not capable of deformation in case of an impact, i.e., of collapsing, because it is inherently too rigid. Furthermore, another requirement of modern vehicle design at the present time consists of the need to save weight in all areas, because this results in a reduction of operating costs. This requirement also affects the heating and air conditioning devices of automotive vehicles.